Thanks for the video. I saw one of these on a jobsite (a steam turbine jobsite, so the use of this strange looking thing was not obvious) and had no clue what it was.

The government doesn't pour $7 million. They dish it out with an eyedropper.

Not that $7 million isn't a lot of money for you and me, but for the US government it is a rounding error.

I think you are ignoring the distribution costs, which are not trivial. The distribution fee is a significant part of my utility bill. It means that Solar or a small wind turbine doesn't have to be compeditive with the efficiency and cost of retail electricity at all. It could be miserably inefficient actually. But if the generation cost is cheaper than the utility's generation+distribution fees, then it may be financially viable.

There are lots of things where, if you're willing to pay more and take a more traditional approach (e.g., leather instead of high-tech fabrics), you can buy local. For example, it is easy to buy all your furniture from a local craftsman/woodworker - but the price will not even be remotely like what you'd find at Wal-mart.

Often the initial price will be higher, but the total cost of ownership is lower. My father has a set of bookshelves that he built himself when he was in his 20's. Now he is over 60 and the bookshelves have held up through countless moves and heavy books sitting on them for decades. I don't believe they even had cheap bookshelves 40 years ago, but I know for sure that if I bought Ikea/Walmart bookshelves now they would not last as long as that.

Last year I bought a Weber (American made) charcoal grill. It was a few dollars more than the cheap chinese grill but the metal is thick and the paint is a high quality enamel. It is going to last a long time, but people buying grills might think twice about the higher price.

Things are being made cheaper and cheaper everyday. I have a coworker who recently worked at an automotive safety testing company and according to him even the high end (BMW/Mercedes) manufacturers are getting rid of the real leather seats in favor of fake stuff. Only high end models get the real leather. Fewer and fewer companies make quality products every year.

Shareholder often keep their shares for only (fractions of) seconds

The advent of higher and higher speed trading has diluted the word "shareholder" and "stockholder". A person who owns the share for a very short period of time is not really a shareholder, although they meet the dictionary definition. They are a speculator. Someone who holds the share over a long time period is a shareholder. Such persons should want the company making long-term decisions that benefit the company both now and in the future

Some people are joyous to get the free pittance offered to them in "compensation". Others sit in airports, sometimes for days, waiting for flights.

This often isn't a nefarious thing. The last time I took a bump, I got a $400 voucher (I believe this is the minimum required by the government for most flights) and they put me on a direct flight instead of having a layover somewhere else. I got home sooner than I would have otherwise, and I have tons of miles so I sold the vouchers for $300 cash.

Some modern plants use super-critical "steam", and the water never really boils.

Sure it boils. Supercritical steam is at a pressure where the density of water and the density of the steam are the same. It means that you need to force the circulation of the water since density won't make the bubbles rise. But rest assured that liquid water is turning into a gaseous form.

Money is a way of measuring human work, when you do work you get compensated with money, if your job is something only a smaller portion of people can do you usually get paid more, if there are a lot of people trying to get your job and can do it, your pay will go down.

Traditionally this is true, but is it still true? I understand that great sports players are paid more because only they can do what they do, and you need the absolute best talent. It used to be that great actors and musicians were paid more since they had a special talent. But is that still true? You can be a completely mediocre singer these days, but a record company can polish you up, autotune your singing, give you dance lessons, slap on some makeup, and make you a millionaire. It is not about the person's ability in that case, it is about the brand (with their name being a brand).

Can you justify the salary of investment bankers by saying that only a small amount of people have the ability or the desire to do it? I would say no. Or how about CEOs of large companies? Certainly there is no shortage of people who want the CEO salary, and have the desire to be CEO. Yet some CEOs go from company to company, completely ruining the company with bad management and then move to the next company (usually with a pay raise!).

Many job markets are distorted. The "bad yet highly paid CEO" problem baffles me completely, but it is easy to see how ability and hard working can only take you so far in many positions. No matter how hard I work, I will never be the president of the company I work for. The deck is stacked against most of us.

The ROI goes straight into big pharma. Paying for condoms and pills for a single couple over 40 years is probably $20,000

I think you may be overestimating that a little bit. A 24 pack of condoms every week only adds up to around $20k between a woman's puberty and menopause. That's a pace that very few (if any) couples can match. Birth control pills are more than 40 years old now. If ever there was a cheap pill, it would be that one. If it were allowed to be OTC, it would be even cheaper (as Zyrtec and various other prescription to OTC medicines have shown).

Meanwhile, an uncomplicated normal vaginal delivery starts at $15k. Add a couple complications and you can easily reach $30k or more. Per kid. Plus all the other medical costs that come with kids- routine medicines, doctor visits, etc. If a kid really has something wrong with him, the costs can skyrocket.

Insurance companies have people on staff that try to manage costs. If they can spend $20k to save $40k, they will do it. Big pharma is a powerful force, but don't forget that the medical system in the US is a 3-party system, which includes doctors, insurance companies, and big pharma.

Don't forget also that in a major accident, there may be other costs involved besides simply replacing the vehicle. Property damage might have occurred, towing fees, car rental fees, etc add up. In some municipalities you are billed a significant amount of money for fire department response to an accident. If someone decides to sue you, it can push costs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars fairly easily. And your insurance will cover most of this depending on your coverage.

I hate paying the monthly fees, but I don't have the net worth to have $100,000 in a bank account for the day when someone decides to sue me because they ran a red light and got paralyzed. Few people do, and those that do probably want insurance to protect their assets.